Easter Reflection

Easter Sunday, and all is quiet.  The Last Supper, the cruelty and death on a cross are past.  Or, are they?  When we think of Good Friday and Easter, we think of it as a one time event that really benefited only Jesus.  Jesus died from the cruelty of those who could not welcome his passion.

The passion of the Christ began at the dawn of creation if not before, born in eternity of God’s love.  It is a passion for life, it is the passion of God for fullness of life for all — no exceptions.  Jesus is the embodiment of God’s passion, God’s love so we can see, hear and touch God in a tangible way.  Jesus is anointed as The Christ and as such, the death and resurrection of the Christ is not a one time only event.  The death and resurrection of the Christ is an on-going, eternal event right up to this present moment.  Death and resurrection is the pattern for all of creation.

This passion, this pattern of creation is not something for us to simply look at,  admire, adore or worship but something to participate in.  We, as the living body of Christ in the world,  are to be living witnesses to this divine pattern of life.

We have a suffering and passionate God, a God who suffers with us, and in each moment there is the possibility for the transformation of suffering into new and fuller life.  Jesus doesn’t save us from anything but shows us the path we must walk, time and again, through suffering and death to new life.  There is no other path.

Jesus saw the suffering God in all those who lived on the margins of life because of oppressive religious and secular institutions.  Jesus became one of the marginalized, empowering them to hope and strive for fuller life.  The passion of God in Jesus spoke truth to worldly powers inviting all to a new way of living.

Today, we see the suffering God, the suffering Christ in all who are marginalized today: the immigrants at our southern boarder, all best with war and violence, we see him in the homeless on our streets, and among our own family, friends and neighbors; who suffer from addictions, depression, poverty and hunger.  We are the ones now, who must suffer with, and speak truth to the powers of this world.  We are the anointed ones, the living body of Christ for others.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was murdered in Auschwitz concentration camp for opposing Hitler wrote a book called “The Cost of Discipleship.”  If our following Jesus doesn’t cost us something, we then are not his disciples.